Remembering Early Telecommunications


Oral Histories

PS-Paul Shaw is the interviewer and author of. They Said in Salisbury is available from the Salisbury Historical Society and on view at the Salisbury Free Library.


Fred L Adams born 1911

Excerpts from an Interview by Paul S. Shaw, MD. re: Telecommunications

Date Feb 1989

Place:  Fred’s house, North Road Salisbury

Published in They Said It In Salisbury by Paul S. Shaw, MD pgs 5-6

PS- Your Dad was involved with the telephone company, in the formation. Can you tell me something about that?

F- My Dad didn’t come here till about 1909, somewhere around there. He had been in a New York in a brokerage firm working there. He was and an accountant. He and mother were married and lived in New Jersey for a year and a half, and then came back here. He took over the telephone company at that time.

PS-Your mother’s father was one of the directors?

F- Yes. he took over management of the company. That was located where Fred Richardson lives now.     (note-this is house #1 a the crossroad of rte 127&rte 4 NE corner)

PS- Yes, I have of tape of Liza Buzzell’s description of geing the first operator.

F- I would say she probably was over in the old store across the road but I wouldn’t swear to this. Eventually in was in the Richardson’s house, the front room of the house on the corner, the room next to the driveway in the front.

PS- How complicated a system did you have in those days?

F- It wasn’t very complicated, just a pair of wires running here and there. Eighteen people on one line or more, sometimes up to twenty.  There were two toll circuits going into Franklin then, later there eight or nine. There there was a circuit into Penacoock and one into Concord.

PS- Any interesting stories about the company in your fathers day?

F- The most interesting was the storms. They could be snow or hurricanes. They’d blow the stuff  down and you have’d to go up and work like hell.

PS- When you got through school you went to work with the telephone company?

F-Yes

PS- How big a crew did you have and what part of the telephone lines did you cover?

F- Well, were into Wilmot, Andover, Danbury, East Andover, Salisbury, Webster, Boscawen and into the edge of Franklin

PS- How big a crew?

F- In the wintertime, two and that wasn’t full time either. In the summertime we’d have three or four especially if we were putting in a line, setting poles and running new wires. As the company grew we had to keep putting up cross arms and wires on the poles, so there were five pairs of wires on each cross arm. At one time going between the Crossroads and the Heights there were four ten-pin cross arms on the poles, so there were five pair of wires on each cross arm. Also, the first cables we had there were just a few short pieces around the village here, because we had so many wires going out we didn’t know what to do with them.

PS-The people that don’t remember the old days before cables can’t get a picture of wha the world would be today if we had separate pair of wires for every telephone.

F-Oh my God! It would be impossible, you just can’t do it. I know today (note: 1989), especially in New London the they have condominiums they are putting in two pairs of wires for each unit. And that isn’t enough. One fellow up there recently wanted four or five lines for one unit.

pg 8-

PS. How about natural catastrophes such as hurricanes, or anything like that.   Anything unusual happen with the telephone Company?

F-Yes. The 1938 Hurricane kicked out most of the equipment we had outside those were all single wires in those days. It took three weeks before we got the last telephone working  and that’s working from daylight until dark. We stayed in Andover and worked as long as we could see, and took off the next morning just as soon as there was light enough for us to see. Then we’ve had a lot of heavy snowstorms that have taken a lot of stuff down I can’t tell you the years or when.


Oral Histories

Liza Buzzell b. 1887 and worked at theTelephone office by 1901.

Excerpts from an Interview by Paul S. Shaw, MD. and Joy Chamberlain Re: Telecommunications

Date Dec. 6, 1988

Place:  New London Nursing Center

Published in They Said It In Salisbury by Paul S. Shaw, MD

p 45-46

L- I went to work for the telephone company when I was fourteen. I got a dollar and a half a week, and if I had half a day off a month I was lucky. And I got paid when they went collecting. When I got trough I was getting five dollars.

PS- Was the telephone office right here in the house? (note: House #1 NE Crossroads of rte 127 & rte 4 referred to as the Richardson house by Fred Adams)

L-  The office first was in the back of Little’s Store. that was across the street. They had a back room.

PS- Was that beside the church?

L- No, it was across the street, where the Crossroads Store is now. Chapman’s hotel was next. There were four buildings there. And the Grand Army got the building and fixed it up, made a dance hall, a dining room and a check room.-everything it was lovely. And up in the attic a fire started . etc  (note: This area was devastated by a fire and the buildings burned in 1894) 


page 50-52 Excerpts

PS- Tell us about the Telephone Company:

L- John Little was the manager, and tom Little the general manger. W.W, Burbank was president and lived in Webster….(etc. see p.50 They Said It in Salisbury.)

PS- Who else worked there?

L- Etta Holmes, and she was Etta Taylor, she married Fred Taylor. Viral Taylor she just died she worked there. George Fellow’s wife worked there. I think those were the (ones).  I liked the telephone company work. I wish I had stayed with it.

PS- You say you had to crank the thing to make it ring?

L- Oh, yes.  You had to crank the phone, and in the switchboard you had to turn that- alarm at night. And then they brought the thing to ring with batteries…(etc.)

PS- You had several people on each line and you had a different rings for different people?

L- Yes. long rings and short. They’d ring each other and  there’d be four or five talking. It was a party line. Ha! Ha! You’d have go in and ask for the line.

PS- Was there a tea room in the telephone office?

L-??? No there was one across the street in the store.  (note: Another building existed between her house and the church thats was called The Red Tea House for a time after around 1938).

L- They moved the telephone office to the front room in our house, in  my room.  That’s where it was last. Now they don’t have a telephone office. (note: Update-There is currently a Kearsarge Telephone Company building located a short distance away on rte 4)

PS- Fred Adams’ father, Bert, was pretty active in the telephone company wasn’t he?

His mother was a Little.

L- Yes.  Carrie Little, Tom Little’s daughter. Ralph Little and George were in the telephone office when I was, and Tom Little was general manger.

Oral History of the Grange


 Robert (Bob) and Isabel Bartz

From an Interview by Paul S. Shaw, MD.

Aug. 31, 1992

Published in They Said It In Salisbury by Paul S. Shaw, MD

Paul Shaw- “You were telling me about”(Amos Ames)

Isabel …..”But one of the things concerning Salisbury, he used to sing. He had a beautiful tenor voice and it was a treat when he come to sing.”

Bob- “He belonged to the Grange.”

Isabel- “Yes, he was a Granger.”

Paul Shaw-  “You said his name was Ames?”

Isabel- “Yes. Amos Lorenzo Ames.”

Bob- “He was a Granger in Henniker, too.”

Isabel- “In those days his wife used to go dancing, but she had passed away long before he came this way. He is buried in the cemetery, Maplewood.”

Isabel- “At the time that we came here Academy Hall was an association, also. The neighborhood around the Academy Hall was called the Academy Hall Association.”

Paul Shaw-  “And what did they do?”

Isabel- “They…they…. The school was downstairs. I don’t really know what the transaction was…that the association owned the building and the school was downstairs, the Grange was upstairs. We had Grange Fairs. All the vegetables were displayed on the desks downstairs and there were some  beautiful vegetables that people in Salisbury raised.. Back in the 40’s that was.

I think one of the things I remember about Grange that struck me greatly was we went to he Grange Fair and there were sales going on all day long with booths around the hall. Then evening time there was a supper, and the same people that were tending the sales tables were setting up supper tables, cooking food, putting it on, waiting on people. Soon as supper was over, tables cleared away we had an entertainment: lovely, lively show, same people. They were the characters in the play, the ones doing the singing. It was just an amazing story to me, but I suppose that’s the way it is in the neighborhood, when you get things going, the people that are there are the ones who do the work.”

Bob- “At that time we had a dining room and put on supper.”


Liza Buzzell

From an Interview by Paul S. Shaw, MD. and Joy Chamberlain

Dec 6, 1988

Place:  the New London Nursing Home

Published in  They Said It In Salisbury by Paul S. Shaw, MD

 Paul Shaw- “Tell us about the Grange back in your day.”

Liza- “Oh, it was going then. They had a lot of members. We were having suppers and we were putting on plays. We used to put on plays for The Grange and the Red Cross., and all those….World War 1. We’d get our wigs and costumes from World’s from Boston. They used to come up on the seven-thirty train. We used to have a five -piece orchestra from Concord. We use to have really good times. They were good times. Big suppers. That old town hall used to be packed, full to the doors. Now there doesn’t (seem to be) anybody (to) go to the Grange  They’re either going somewhere or watching TV. I don’t watch TV but I watch the news.”

Paul Shaw- “What else did you belong to or what else did you do?”

Liza-  ” I belonged to the Grange, and that was about all I did belong to. That’s all there was. Then, later on, the Untiarians started the Andover Service Club. I am a honorary member of that, and I’m an honorary member of the Salisbury (Hisrtoical Society). The Grange was the big thing.”


Claribel Brockstedt

From an Interview by Paul S. Shaw, MD

Aug. 31, 1992

Published in  They Said It In Salisbury by Paul S. Shaw, MD

Paul Shaw-“What activities did you get into in Salisbury?”

Claribel- “We joined the Grange. We happened to go to an entertainment they put on, and Mrs. Lovejoy, Norma Lovejoy’s mother, was sitting next to me and she said “Why don’t you and your husband join the Grange?”.  I said, “I don’t know why we shouldn’t and we did. I’ve been a Granger ever since 1946.”


Art and Leah Schaefer 

From an Interview by Dr. Paul S. Shaw

Sept 8, 1992

Published in They Said It In Salisbury by Paul S. Shaw, MD

Paul Shaw- “You mentioned being involved in the Ladies Aid, at least helping out when they had activities”.

Leah Schaefer- “They used to have a fair and a supper. this was many years ago. I guess they always had it for many years., but sometimes in the fall, after the war, a Harvest Supper and a beautiful exhibit of handwork that they had done. Displays of various interest the ladies had. And a good time was had by all. We had the supper in the dining room down at the hall and drawings for raffles.”

Paul Shaw- “When you are talking about the Hall you are talking about the Town Hall?”

Leah Schaefer- “No the Grange Hall Academy Hall, they’d have a program.”

Paul Shaw- “Now before the Academy was changed over there were a lot of community activities in the Grange Hall?”

Leah Schaefer- “There were the Grange meetings. There would be a children’s night once a year, and after the program was over that the school children put on the kids all got ice cream. It made them very happy. Made a treat. It was always followed by a social hour.

After the Grange fair there was dancing. And there was awhile when they had dances every couple of weeks. I don’t know who put them on or what happened to end them. I guess there were a few complaints from a few unhappy citizens. That ended that.”


Orvie Shaw 

From an Interview by Paul S. Shaw, MD

transcribed Oct 14, 1991

Published in “They Said It In Salisbury” by Dr. Paul S. Shaw

Paul S. Shaw- “Any organizations yo’ve been active in town?”

Orvie- “No. I used to be a Granger a long time ago. And then, I was telling the kids down to school the other day, they used to have community plays. Maybe you can remember. I can. And they’d take, like this house this month, Bert’s house the next month, and Frazier’s house the next month. They went to lthe whole neighborhood. And they had food, they danced, they’d sing, and they’d out on a show, and they had a good time.

And I was telling the teacher, you don’t see that any more and you don’t. If you had it they wouldnt go.”


Dot Bartlett

From an Interview by Gail Manion Henry.

Date  May 6, 2004

Location: In her Home, 54 Franklin Road, Salisbury NH

Addendum to They Said It In Salisbury by Paul S. Shaw, MD

Gail Henry- “I don’t see you getting bored much.”

Dot- “I’m not bored. I can’t understand how anybody can say “I’m bored”.  I don’t find the time to do what I want to do. I was on the committee for the 200th anniversary, the bicentennial of the town, in 1968. I joined the Grange when I was 16 and I’ve been a Grange member ever since.”

Gail Henry-  “Are they still active?”

Dot-  “They’re still active but not too active. You can’t get members…and I’m not a good member now. I was very active in Grange. I served as Master and I served some offices and we had a ladies’ degree team went all over doing degree work. Then I took over the Junior Grange and I was leader of the Junior Grange for 30 years.”

Gail Henry- “I remember square dancing with John Beaudoin there.”

Dot-  “That may have been the time when Ruth Parris, maybe, was the leader. She was one of the first leaders, or the first leader. She and Isabel Bartz I think were the first. Then I took it over. I was junior leader from “57 to ’87. Right up through that time we were the biggest Junior Grange in the State. Very active. This Junior Grange, up until …a couple of years before I gave it up it started to go down. Kids have so much to do now and so many places and don’t have to do anything but what they want to do that Junior Grange started to go down. Then after I gave it up a couple of people tried to keep it going but the kids weren’t interested, so between the lack of leadership and the lack of kids… We are still listed as an active Grange because I haven’t turned in the charter and I have paid the state dues ever since just to keep them listed as active. But they really aren’t active. There’s only about three or four Junior Granges in the State of New Hamphisre now compared to 15 or 20 back then.”

Gail Henry- “Is that right? Thats too bad.”

Dot-   “It is too bad. I feel bad and I’ve always said that I’d rather work with kids than adults any time. And that’s my theory. Give me the kids to work with any day but I will admit that kids are different today then they were back then I could have a meeting of 50 kids up there in the hall and I’d say  “I want to hear a ‘pin drop’ and you could hear a pin drop, but by the time I was getting through I could ask them to be quiet and you couldn’t even hear a boulder come off the Kearsarge Mountain.”

Gail Henry- ” I think you’re right about kids being different. There a a complete lack of I don’t know what …discipline.”

Dot- “Respect. But I ‘m not going to blame it all on the kids. I feel bad because I hated to see this Junior Grange fold up.  I had put so much work into it. So I sort of got burned out of Grange by being the leader for 30 years. And although I’m willing to help and do what I can for the Grange, I am not a good attendee.”


Ed and Bev Sawyer

From an Interview by Gail Manion Henry.

Date  June 3, 2004

Location: in their Home 133 Warner Rd Salisbury NH

Addendum to They Said It In Salisbury by Paul S. Shaw, MD

Gail Henry- “Were you in the Grange?”

Ed-  “I was the first Master of Bartlett Junior Grange in Salisbury. And thats when Ruth Parris and Dot Bartlett, they started Juvenile Grange and I was the First Master.”